Mobile devices like phones, tablets, portable computers and other electronic devices are abundant, amounting to billions of units sold every year. A person may own many such devices, and may purchase new electronic devices to replace old ones frequently. This trend has created the need to re-use and recycle the old devices. For example, used mobile phones are frequently sold to a new owner. To sell the device to a new owner, the device needs to be checked and some technical operations on the device may need to be performed. In addition, the contents and possibly the settings of the old device need to be moved to the new device, such that they can be accessed by the user, but not by the new owner of the old device. These operations take time, and yet the operations need to be done in a reliable manner.
It is possible to transfer data from one device to another either directly or by using a cloud service offered by the device manufacturer, or another cloud service. In such operations, the owner of the device needs to go through steps of configuring the transfer from one device to the cloud and from the cloud to another device, and the transfer may take a long time. The patent publication US2016253274 describes an arrangement where a mobile phone retailer may transfer the data to a user's cloud service.
A user may find such ways of copying data between electronic devices to be unreliable or difficult to use, and the chance for user error is significant. There is a need for a solution that provides an improved way to transfer data between electronic devices.